


Cutdown

by faintyoungsun (sadlygrove)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M, Mental Institutions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-30
Updated: 2012-03-30
Packaged: 2017-11-02 17:59:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlygrove/pseuds/faintyoungsun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anna looks at her critically over the pills. "These don't work, just so you know."</p><p>"Oh, honey. Haven't you figured it out? I've been switching yours with Skittles."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cutdown

**Author's Note:**

> made to go with a [photoset](http://wingcest.tumblr.com/post/20004631340/au-meme-anna-and-castiel-are-both-psych-ward) floating around on tumblr

o1.

She's easy to spot. She's all red hair--red like an apple, he figures, but not Red Delicious, more like a Gala apple--and he notices. Notices because he's become accustomed to staring at walls, windows, pictures, anything else. But the red; the red makes it so much easier to look past the maggots festering in his fingernails, the flames licking at the edge of his vision.

He decides he likes her, instantly.

o2.

Free time is the worst time, but then again he supposes the staff need to clean his room once in a while, and he'd promised the nice nurse with the unnatural eyes that he'd stretch his legs more often. But free time is the worst time, because he sees the people of the ward. He sees them with their eyes gouged out, their hands bloated with a million wasp stings, leprosy and gangrene and even the plague once or twice, though he's never seen the Black Death, but that's what he calls whatever that pus and ooze is.

But today, for some reason, he sees red. A good red. A Gala red.

"What are you drawing?"

The woman starts; his voice came out rough from weeks of disuse, from weeks of no phone calls and the suspicion that spiders would fall out if he opened his lips.

He clears his throat. It doesn't help. "It's lovely."

"Thank you." Her shoulders relax very slightly. "It's a sunflower."

"It looks sharp."

"Oh, it's..." She bites her lip, glancing up and down as if she could see the crazy etched into his skin like a tattoo to judge. "My grandmother's bathroom had a stained glass window, when I was a kid."

"Ah." Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the patient from 23-A bang his skull onto the table until it turns to bone as an orderly looks politely on. 

He turns and leaves her without another word, not wanting to push his luck.

o3.

"They say you don't sleep."

"They're right."

She frowns at that, folds her arms and leans against the doorjamb. "I haven't seen you for a few days."

"I haven't left this room in a few days."

"Oh." A pause. "I'm Anna."

His gaze finally flickers from the bed sheets to large green eyes.

She--Anna, the woman with Gala-red hair--picks at chipping paint, an old navy blue that flakes off in potato chip sizes.

"I'm surprised they let us wander around like this. The last place I was at was more strict."

"Our particular Ward A is for patients who are not predisposed to harming themselves."

Anna snorts softly. "Says the man who doesn't sleep."

"Harming themselves in typical manners," he amends. He is very much against suicide, truth be told, and finally managed to convince the therapist of that last January.

"Why don't you sleep?"

His eyes drift back to the bed, to the crisp white linen that will have to be changed in two days. He keeps his eyes pinned there. Eventually, though he's unsure of how long, Anna gets the hint and leaves, a small pile of peeled paint where her feet were.

It hits him, then, that his minutes with her were the longest he's gone without seeing the things that crawled out of Hell.

o4.

He sits two chairs away from her, two hard, ugly, scratchy plastic chairs away and says; "Castiel."

"What?"

"My name. It is Castiel."

It takes her a moment, but from the corner of his eye, Castiel sees her smile, returning to her drawing of a hand print.

"Nice to meet you." She sighs, shading the whorls of a thumb delicately. "I'm Anna, and I hear angels in my head."

And Castiel very nearly laughs, but holds it in, clamping his teeth on his tongue. If the laughter go out, it would probably get him sent to Ward C.

o5.

Anna is an only child, attending art school--well, had been attending--and loves Dalmatians. She prefers pistachio ice cream, the angels never talk back, and her most prized possession is a Schwinn ten speed. Was a Schwinn ten speed bicycle, Castiel thinks. Now it's probably those colored pencils that she prizes the most.

"What do they say to you, if you don't mind me asking?"

She shrugs, pencils flying over paper. "They're not even talking to me. It's more like I'm eavesdropping. I used to try to talk back; my parents just thought I had a lot of imaginary friends growing up. Eventually I got the picture and learned to ignore it. It faded in and out, mostly."

Castiel wonders how someone could ignore such a thing. "I don't understand."

"Hm?"

"How you got here, if you kept it to yourself."

Anna's pen strokes slow. Today she's drawing a church, one not of buttresses and gargoyles, but of old wood and tiny pews for a handful of nuns. "I stopped keeping it to myself."

"Oh." Castiel's eyebrows knit together.

Anna doesn't elaborate, so Castiel watches her shade the altar and pews for the rest of their Free Time.

o6.

The nurse winks at him when she delivers his sandwich that hopefully isn't covered with phlegm and larvae like the last one. "Eat up, Clarence."

Castiel swears she would ruffle his hair if she could.

"Why does she call you that," Anna asks, peeking around the doorway after the nurse has gone. Her nose is scrunched up as if she's just smelled something foul.

"I have no idea." The sandwich checks out; nothing gross. Except for the mayo. "She's a little strange. Sometimes her eyes go black."

Anna's eyebrows shoot up.

"I mean. I think her eyes go black. Maybe."

The eyebrows stay nestled firmly in Anna's hairline, and Castiel feels suddenly unsure of where to put his hands. He replaces his sandwich, sets it delicately to the side, and rests his palms on his knees. "I just. I." He sucks in a breath. "I know it's in my head," he says, softly but firmly, and he's only said that to one other person before.

"Oh, Castiel." He sees her slippered feet pad closer, feels her weight sink the mattress down. She smells like watermelon shampoo. Someone who loves her must have sent her a care package.

Anna takes his hand, slowly, like it's a wounded animal. Like he is. 

"It's not real," Castiel murmurs, swears he feels flames licking at his toes. "It's not."

"But it's real to us."

Castiel closes his eyes, tightens his fingers around slender ones, ones made for holding pencils and charcoal. "I want my life back. I want to go home."

And he does, more than anything, because while Anna's hands are made for paint brushes, his are made for hammers and nails, saws and sandpaper and brushes covered in thick lacquer. His hands are made for cradling rough hands and stubbled jaws, sewing stitches across broad shoulders and scarred backs. It feels like he hasn't used his hands for anything good in ages. And the thing he pushes down, the thing he tries not to think about, springs free.

"I miss our life," he whispers, screwing his eyelids tight.

"Shhh, I know. I know, Cas."

He hiccups a sob at that before darkness of days without rest takes him.

o7.

His dreams are filled with scenes from The Pit, but the whole time he watches the man flay people on the Rack, Castiel smells the sweet scent of watermelon, and for some reason that cheapens the whole thing. It's not a cure by a long shot, but it is something.

o8.

"You said 'our'."

"Hmmm?" Castiel keeps getting lost in the rain, staring at it falling against barred windows. "When?"

"'Our' life. Who is the other half of this 'our'?"

"My boyfriend." Castiel has his knees drawn up on the hideous chair, fingers running absently over his chin. "My almost-husband. Ex-boyfriend, maybe. I haven't heard from him in a while. I hope he's alright."

Anna sucks in a sharp breath. "What a jackass," she mutters, stabbing her brush a little too viciously into cerulean blue. She's painting a small lake that Castiel had convinced her to make sapphire instead of obsidian.

"His job keeps him on the move a lot, and sometimes he's not able to phone anyone. 'Off the grid' is what I suppose you'd call it."

"Hmph. What's he do?"

"I can't tell you."

"If I guess it, will you nod?"

"No."

"Is he CIA?"

"I'm not nodding."

"FBI?"

"Anna." 

"NASA?"

"Dean can hardly handle a plane, let alone a rocket." A small smile spreads across Castiel's face. "We went to see his Uncle Bobby once and I had to hold his hand the whole way over Detroit until the turbulence ended."

"Really?"

"You wouldn't think it if you saw him, but Dean can be a... a chicken shit, that's how Uncle Bobby put it, I believe."

"What a wimp."

"His brother has an irrational fear of clowns."

"So does the guy across the hall form me."

"Alright, lovebirds; time for your shots," the nurse chirps sweetly, handing them each a little cup of pills. "Vodka for the hot bombshell, and tequila for the sexy redhead."

"Thank you, Nurse Meg."

Anna looks at her critically over the pills. "These don't work, just so you know."

"Oh, honey. Haven't you figured it out? I've been switching yours with Skittles."

Castiel doesn't even try to suppress his grin.

o9. 

Castiel has been sleeping better, but that's about it.

"So... You're saying you see Lucifer?"

"Often."

"As in, The Devil?"

"I wasn't aware there was another Lucifer of ill-repute."

"Do you see him now?"

"Yes."

"What's he doing?"

"Playing the acoustic guitar and singing Green Day."

"Oh."

"I believe he's trying to be ironic."

"What does he look like? Does he have a little goatee?"

"No." Castiel swallows. "He... looks like my brother." He's only told that to Dean before.

"I... But you know he's not really your brother, right?"

"Nick was actually a worse singer."

Anna chuckles, the sudden tension leaving her shoulders.

"He's going to do a dramatic reading of 'Little Women' later, he says."

"Ugh. I don't envy you."

"You shouldn't."

1o.

Anna asks if he's ever seen 'Scrubs' and Castiel hasn't, he's never been one for TV (except the time Dean go him hooked on 'Dr. Sexy MD'), to which Anna feigns a gasp and this is how they end up going gurney surfing down Ward A's back hallway for all of ten seconds before Anna falls flat on her ass and Castiel nearly pisses himself laughing, but so does Nurse Meg, so they don't actually get into trouble. 

"This time," she coos, eyes going black for a moment.

Castiel just smiles and says thank you for being a terrible nurse.

11.

"Would you be upset if I left? If I signed myself out?"

"No. I've been expecting it for a while. Your... 'problem'"--and yes, he goes through the trouble of making air quotes--"seems so manageable for someone of your strength and character."

Anna gives him a small, sad smile. "I just need to keep my dumb mouth shut."

"Maybe the end really is coming. Lucifer walks the earth, after all."

"He seems like more of a doofus than anything, the way you describe him."

"He is," Castiel lies.

"The pills didn't really do anything for me, you know."

"You don't have to whisper; it's not a secret." There's no one else in the room, unless they're hiding under the bed, but Castiel's not gotten that far with his therapy yet.

"And I'm not sure what I'd do if they just stopped all of a sudden. It would be like going deaf. I'm, I'm more afraid of losing them at this point."

"I can't pretend to relate."

Anna leans into his side. "You know... I was going to sign myself out two weeks ago, after the minimum stay my parents asked me to do. But I just--" Anna shakes her head, red Gala hair catching the barred sunlight. "You're sure you're going to be alright? I hate the thought of you being alone."

"Dean will come back for me. It's fine, Anna, really; you have a good life outside that won't wait for you."

"Yeah, well," Anna sniffs, her eyes gone glassy and green like moss after rain. "I guess I don't have faith in him like you do," she finishes bitterly.

It comes out easily, automatically: "My faith is unshakable."

"I'm going to try and visit you, you know."

"Please don't. You should stay away from this place."

"Cas, come on--"

"Anna. Go home." He touches his fingers to her cheek. "Go."

That last day they thumb through her book of drawings, past pages of churches and graveyards and diners and one sketch of a car Castiel thinks Dean would love to own. When the nurse tells them it's time for bed, Anna waits, kisses Castiel's temple and leaves the sketch book under his pillow beside the little gold amulet.

Castiel adjusts his eyes back to the wall and takes a deep breath--one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine--and lets it out.

**Author's Note:**

> There was no other reason than it was on at that time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i8wbMcrrGU


End file.
